Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing technique using an RPC (Remote Procedure Call).
Description of the Related Art
There is available an RPC (Remote Procedure Call) as a technique for allowing an application to use a function provided by an external functional component. In a remote procedure call scheme, a component (to be referred to as a calling component hereinafter) on the calling side defines a function interface for the use of a function provided by a functional component. When an application calls the function interface, a remote procedure call message is transmitted to a functional component to execute the function. In some cases, a functional component transmits a return message to a calling component.
In addition, when performing a remote procedure call, a calling component determines a destination and performs control to properly transmit and receive messages. This makes it possible to perform calling independently of the relationship between the calling component and a functional component on a process. That is, it is possible to perform calling regardless of whether these components are on the same process or different processes or are assigned to different CPUs. This makes it easy for an application developer to develop applications because of the unnecessity of a description concerning the transmission/reception of messages between components.
The remote procedure call scheme sometimes calls, from a process in a functional component which has called a calling component, another functional component. In such a case, in application development, it is necessary to associate a process in each component corresponding to one process sequence and a process result.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-110337 (patent literature 1) discloses a technique of performing divisional processing for one process unit by using a plurality of computers. More specifically, this patent literature discloses a method of performing divisional processing, assigning request numbers identifying the respective divided processes as processes belonging to the same process sequence and using them for log output. The patent literature also discloses a method of, when transmitting a request number across physical apparatuses, transmitting the request number while being added as the argument of a remote procedure call. These processes enable to confront process results based on a given request.
According to the conventional technique disclosed in patent literature 1 or the like, however, when a component at a calling destination further calls another component, an identifier is not taken over. More specifically, the component at the calling destination only calls another component by using its own identifier. That is, when executing a process sequence by using a remote procedure call across a plurality of components, no identifier is propagated. For this reason, it is difficult to identify the association between the process results obtained by the respective components.